Hey guys!

http://aeoxodus.wix.com/creativeportfolio

Here's the link to my creative portfolio. It was inspired by all the books we've read (namely the three novels, Boy Genius, HTLSSF, and The Calcutta Chromosome). The three themes of Science, Technology and Magic are what motivated me to make this website. I hope you'll enjoy it! :-)

Jordan Wong
 
Hello everyone!
For my creative portfolio I based it off of my Narrative Essay in the beginning of the year. At the beginning it was very hard for me to transition in many ways from my academics and in general a transition into a new phase of my life. Looking from my Narrative Essay I realized that I've grown since then, and that now I have a better understanding of who I am (kind of). To sum it all up, it's in the video below :) 
Have a wonderful holiday and school year! Hopefully I see everyone around and in classes :) 

Love, 
Janice 
 
Included are my poems titled: "I'm the first man on the moon," "Geisha," and "The 'American' Dream"
creative_portfolio.docx
File Size: 380 kb
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-Rachel Chung
 
With the idea of machine learning, humans are transferring a great amount of human intelligence into machines. Do you think there still exists something that robots may not be able to learn from humans ?

With the existence of internet, and countless blogs, wikipedias, journals, books, and pages within the internet, robots have already surpassed humans with the amount of knowledge. However, knowledge and intelligence are different. While knowledge refers to the sheer amount of "stuff" that you know (for example, the definition of erinaceous), intelligence refers to the ability to apply such knowledge into sentences, formulas, and projects. Therefore, even if a robot knows every single English word out there, it would not be able to create a proper sentence.
(EDIT: Siri and Google just proved me wrong.)

Ok, maybe robots can create perfect sentences, but they can not think and innovate, like engineers. If we tell a robot to create a new smartphone, it would probably just duplicate one of the smartphones already out in the market, like iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, HTC, etc. However, if we ask an engineer to create a new smartphone, he might be able to create something completely new. 

Robots' abilities are limited by the amount of knowledge they have. They cannot create or think anything that is outside their knowledge. And that is the attribute that robots may never be able to learn from humans.

-Fred Lee
 
morsel.pptx
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Prompts: 
+What does it mean to be “Americanized”? To what extent do you feel like you have been “Americanized”?

+With the idea of machine learning, humans are transferring a great amount of human intelligence into machines. Do you think there still exists something that robots may not be able to learn from humans ?

--Jessie Wu
 
Question:  What does it mean to be Americanized? To what extent do you feel like you have been Americanized?


To be Americanized means to become American in culture, style and character.  Even though I was born and raised in America, I feel like I am not 100% Americanized because of my Chinese heritage.  I like to eat American food, watch American movies, observe American holidays and celebrations.  But, socially I keep my traditional Chinese conservative mindset, culture, and standards.

-Justin Chow


 
Question:  If you needed surgery for anything, but only a highly innovated robot would be performing it, would you get your surgery done by a robot? Why or why not?

Technology has become very advanced in the past few decades. Robotic surgeries are advertised and perceived as being good because they take human error out of situations. However, robots are only as powerful as their programmers. What if the programmer made an error? Could the programmer write an algorithm and code for every single variable that contributes to each person’s unique human body? Every human body is unique, and I would not trust a cookie-cutter robot to perform a surgery; in fact, I would hesitate before letting a robot give me a hair cut. Additionally, humans are able to continuously process and receive feedback from our environments. If a patient on an operating room table were to begin bleeding, would a robot be able to sense it? Surgery is an art; I do not think a robot would be able to create art successfully.

-Justin Chow

 
Question:  With current technology, what do you think about personal privacy?


With current technology, personal privacy will be easily infringed, especially the facial recognition software.  In government, the facial recognition component of the FBI’s $1 billion Next Generation Identification (NGI) program set to launch in 2014 will include a database with massive data collection for both criminal and noncriminal purposes. This database will be shared among agencies at the local, state, federal and international levels. Even though this database will allow law enforcement to identify criminals more accurately, it presents critical threats to civil liberties and privacy.  In private enterprises, companies are beginning to use facial recognition technology to improve business. National retailers are installing cameras to learn more about customers, while entities like malls can put cameras in digital billboards that recognize the age and gender of their shoppers and tailor ads to them on the spot. But the fear is as facial recognition gets better and more in use by commercial entities, it will increasingly track us without our knowledge or consent. Smart-phones will make "facial searches" as common as Google searches in the future; nearly everybody can be subject to such prying, even those who are careful about their Internet use.

-Justin Chow


 
Once Sci-fi, drones are now slowly making their ways into our daily lives. How many of you use Amazon to order things? Well, here's news for you: Amazon's future may include delivery drones. 
Check this video out:
If you want to read more about it, you can here: http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=8037720011 or http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/amazon-prime-air-delivery-drones-arrive-early-2015/story?id=21064960

--Jessie Wu
 
After lecture and discussion section last week of Ghosh's Calcutta Chromosome, I was perplexed by the theme of reincarnation in his novel. When I was reading the book, I thought that it was just a coincidence that certain characters had similar traits to other characters from different time periods in the novel. However, after mapping out the connections with Kira in discussion last week, I realized that Ghosh purposely created characters within the book's different time periods to have similar traits to subtly and almost seemingly secretly integrate this concept of "reincarnation."

I remember leaving discussion section last week amazed at how Ghosh carefully crafted his characters to align with one another to show the idea of reincarnation of certain key characters, such as Mangala and Lutchman. The more I thought about this idea of reincarnation, however, I was left with one question: so what? So what about this idea of reincarnation; what is Ghosh trying to depict through this idea?

As explained (by Murugan) in the book, Mangala figured out not only that Malaria could be used to treat syphilis, but also that in the transmission of Malaria blood into one infected with Syphilis, certain characteristic traits of the donor were passed onto the recipient of the Malaria blood. This transmission of traits that Mangala noticed  allows for a person to be "reincarnated" over generations of time. And it was this process that Mangala sought to refine. Thus, Mangala reincarnates herself (as well as her servant Lutchman into Romen) into Mrs. Aratonium then later Urmali  (and eventually Tara) in order to allow this secret knowledge (this "chromosome" as Murugan calls it) to be forever preserved throughout generations overtime. 

So, in a same way, Ghosh uses his theme of reincarnation to explain the significance of preserving one's knowledge, oneself, one's story. In our fast-paced technology-run society, things of the past can quickly become forgotten unless we take the time to preserve it. In the same way that Ms. Reyes shows the importance of having a voice, I feel that Ghosh not only believes in the importance of having a voice, but also and perhaps more importantly the significance of preserving one's voice, or story, once it is found. 

Stories of folklore myths and biblical passages such as the ones that Reyes writes about in Diwata are one mechanism in which our voice and stories can be preserved over generations of time. Another mechanism of preservation that Ghosh alludes to is one that our contemporary society does not yet have access to but that Greg Park in his film "Robot Stories" describes: the idea that we can preserve our minds (or soul) even after our physical body has died. Ghosh alludes to this futuristic technology in the last page of his novel when Tara tells Antar that she, "they," can help him "cross over," into becoming a holographic image (like Murugan) physically dead, but who's mind and soul are preserved...forever.

Reincarnation, as Ghosh seems to imply, allows for one's voice to be forever preserved. Would you "cross over?"

--Abigail Huliganga